I went for a walk on Sunday…a long luxurious walk through the neighborhood looking at the front gardens and late autumn woods. I will go for walks throughout the year, and they will continue once the snow falls. Snow is forecast for this week. I had a sense that as I was walking along, enjoying green grass, some shrubs that are persistent and hardy that I was living on “borrowed time”. I love the time without snow, and everyday that happens now where the snow does not fall feels like a gift to me…and in mid-November, that gift is nothing to be taken for granted.
I had my camera with me, and found myself snapping shots of the vestiges of summer beauty that were still around. There was a real treasuredness as I walked, knowing this could well be the last time I would see these…as any day, it will be covered with the seasonal snow, and the flowers and the green will be gone for months. Flowers in November–what a find!
It got me to thinking about valuing that which will soon be gone, and reminded me of a piece a friend sent me recently, of a mom coming to grips with being aware of living on “borrowed time” with her son…knowing that the day is soon coming when he will be older, living the life of older boys, and letting go of the life of young boys. As delighted as mothers are for their children as they gain more maturity, there is a sense of loss, and of needing to treasure whatever little moments come that feel familiar and increasingly rare, soon to be gone.
We stroll through a crowded shopping mall a familiar distance now between us. He slips away little by little, in the smallest increments, nearly imperceptible, but in this place I find myself acutely aware of a widening gap. It is as it must be, as it should be, as I knew it would be from almost the very beginning. I used to believe knowing this would make it easier to bare, but instead it begs my acceptance, my blessing, my letting go. I release him minute by minute, hour by hour, like a woman in labor, I await the inevitable change, reminding myself to breath. Remember how important it is to breath in every minute and hold the air in your heart as long as you can, I tell myself in these days. I give myself good advice.
Suddenly, unexpectedly, for no reason at all, his hand slips once again into mine. We walk hand and hand as we have countless of times his life. And though the number is beyond counting that this son of mine and I have meandered, our fingers entwined, I instinctively, correctly, know to count this time, to add it to the end of all the other numbers, because it will be the last time.
Store fronts and people passing by slip into a blur as my eyes fight to regain composure. My boy chatters away and I listen to his high pitched voice, knowing something he doesn’t of lasts. It is not right for me to tell him or ask him to carry the responsibility and weight of such knowledge. But as we move through the crowd I consider what it is to be grown and what it is to be a child. I am struck by the firsts and the lasts that come and go. Lasts differ from firsts, as often we have no idea when lasts are happening. They slip in, like dreams, while we sleep and we awaken to find them already gone.
More lasts have already happened than I, yet, even know. Still some of them I caught as they attempted to slither by unnoticed. The walk with my son, hand in hand, I captured. I caught it and held it tight, and though my boy slips away, and a man replaces his childhood self, I will remember the familiar feel of his small hand in mine; the way his happy voice lit up my heart like the sun in a field of wildflowers. I will wish him the joy of knowing the perfect fit of another hand in his, though mine has outgrown him.
Lasts come and go like dreams while we sleep. But, if we awaken in the middle of their passing, sometimes we can catch them and store them away like pearls.
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